


The Marauders and the Unfinished Business

by lunarayne



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M, Marauders, Unrequited Love, Wet Dream
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-17
Updated: 2020-02-17
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:20:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22777027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunarayne/pseuds/lunarayne
Summary: Sirius Black is fresh out of Azkaban and spends the evening catching up with Remus Lupin over a bottle of firewhisky. Feelings are unfortunate.
Relationships: James Potter/Lily Evans Potter, Sirius Black/James Potter, Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 1
Kudos: 27





	1. remus lupin and the very empty glass

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This whole thing was supposed to be a drabble of smut to give to my wife. But Sirius smacked me over the head with his asexuality and didn't let it happen. So here you are. Enjoy the angst.

**remus lupin and the very empty glass**

The first round had been Remus’s doing. He’d found a bottle of firewhisky in his office left by Who-Even-Knew and tried a sip on a day of particularly spectacular self-loathing. He usually made it a rule not to drink strange liquids, but it hadn’t killed him, so he’d taken it home with him.

And now, Sirius was drinking a glass in front of him. Remus’s gaze was light and yet Sirius seemed to feel it nonetheless; his eyes had been closed to savor the taste but fluttered open again to catch his old friends’ and hold the stare.

Remus couldn’t help but think that Sirius, despite his haggard appearance, despite the twelve years of grime that had accumulated over his thinning frame, still held the same devil-may-care good looks he once had, though perhaps they had been buried underneath the Azkaban memories and wounds. The two didn’t speak until both of their glasses were empty.

The second round came from the same bottle, but this time, Sirius poured it. His pour was far more liberal and the firewhisky nearly reached the rim of the glass. Remus had to lean forward to sip from the glass as it lay on the table so it wouldn’t slosh over the rim; Sirius was not quite so graceful, seeming not to notice when the sticky drink cascaded over the edge of his glass over his fingers. Instead, he took a quick swig and lowered the glass again, sucking whisky from his fingers.

There was a long silence that passed before Sirius said, “It is strange. How much he looks like him.”

Remus replied, “I thought the same thing.”

“Except for his eyes.” Sirius was looking off now. He did that a lot. Stared off into nothing, leaving Remus to wonder if he was even still entirely part of this world or if Sirius had dissociated frequently enough that it was mere habit now.

Remus regarded him carefully. “Lily’s eyes,” he said.

Sirius looked back finally, stating through a strange matter-of-fact, “It’s my fault, you know.” He said it through the voice of a man who’d had twelve years to cry over it and had no more tears left on the subject. “I told them to make Pettigrew their Secret-Keeper.”

“Not that it will make a difference, but it wasn’t your fault.” Remus knew that Sirius wasn’t seeking comfort. Not really. He was saying words he’d chewed over in solitude for years. He just needed to give them a bit of life.

“You’ve taken care of my godson, then?”

Remus sighed. He finally lifted his glass. “Harry has excellent friends. They take care of him as well. I’ve taught him what I could. But there’s no substitute for friends.”

“Which one of them is the rat?”

“None.”

“Hm.” Sirius took the rest of his glass in a swallow, letting out a noise of near-pain with a flinch when it was done. Remus reminded himself that Sirius had gone over a decade without alcohol and it likely burned more than he remembered. Sirius’s face was still twisted into a cringe as he said, “There’s always a rat.”

By the third round, Sirius’s eyes were half-lidded and he was slumped into his chair. “You believed it.” He pointed towards Remus with an accusing finger. “You believed I’d killed those muggles. You believed I’d killed old Wormtail. _Worse_. You believed I’d betrayed James.”

“Yes.” Remus was calm in demeanor, but his gut twisted in knots.

“How?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

The answer seemed to be good enough for Sirius because he nodded, wiping liquor from his beard with the back of his hand. “I liked James more than I liked you.” Sirius’s lips were turned upwards as he said it, and Remus laughed at the prod.

Round four went quickly. A pour, a drink, and no pomp or circumstance.

Round five came and they’d said everything they needed to say. The conversation devolved into bawdy laughter. “Nymphadora?” Sirius roared the name in a raucous baritone. “And she’s in love with an old goat like you?”

“She’s not my girlfriend.” Still, the corners of Remus’s lips were turned upwards, hand circling his drink as though protecting it. The firewhisky bottle was nearly empty; Remus had fetched a bottle of wine for the moment it was drained completely. “She’d like to be. And _never_ call her Nymphadora.”

“She’s family,” Sirius declared, arms stretched wide all of a sudden. “Which means that _you_ would be family! Merlin’s beard, Moony, you’ve really stepped in it now, haven’t you?”

Remus scoffed. “And you? What about you? Twelve years is a long time to wait. I’m sure you can’t _wait_ to get your paws on one of the girls who’d fawned over you throughout the years.”

“What girls?” Sirius’s reaction seemed genuine. So quick to pick up on spells, so loyal to the Marauders, so besotted with the idea of revenge. Completely idiotic when it came to matters of the heart. Though Remus thought, perhaps, it would be better not to know.

“ _All_ of them,” Remus insisted. “Throughout the years, there have been so many. Following you around like little ducks.”

“Ducks?”

“Whatever animals follow in a line.”

“Ah. Ducks, I suppose.”

“Yes, ducks.” Remus was tiring of the interaction. It offered no real _answer_ to his original question. “So? Once you’re finally cleared and back in the thick of things… who’s first?”

“No one.” Sirius’s glass was nearly empty after his next sip, but Remus had the firewhisky bottle ready to refill it, and he emptied the last drops into Sirius’s glass. “I’ve never had any interest in sex,” Sirius continued. “Or _romantic_ love for that matter. Let the Black name die with me. One less pureblood family to think about.”

“So you’ve never?” Remus’s voice would have sounded more incredulous, but it was numbed from the alcohol.

“Never… what? Had a poke?”

“Sure, if you’d like to put it so vulgarly.” Remus, for the oddest reason, could not make eye contact with his old friend. “I’d always assumed you’d… well. If it hadn’t been with one of the girls who followed you around at school--”

“--the ducks, you mean?”

“--yes, the ducks, you prat. Well. I’d thought if it wasn’t one of them, it would have been… James at least.”

Sirius’s laugh was loud. He slapped the table with an open palm and the empty bottle toppled over, though Remus thought he’d struck a nerve. “James? No, no, no, Prongs only had eyes for Lily, from the moment he met her. And me? Well, I suppose it wasn’t James _himself_ , we _were_ close enough, but the act in itself always seemed so _pointless_. What _is_ the point, really?”

“Historically,” Remus said, “procreation.”

“And now?”

“Well, _fun,_ I suppose.” Remus’s stomach was twisting again. The whisky was making him bolder, which horrified him. Sirius seemed bolder, too. Color had returned to his gaunt face, even if he hadn’t yet put back on the weight that had withered him. “So you’re saying that you’ve never…?”

“Well, _yes_ , I suppose I am saying that.”

“Not even… yourself?”

Sirius’s eyebrows shot up before he glanced down at his glass. He took down the drink until the cup was empty. He squinted at the other bottle, the wine, as though trying to make it out. Determine if it was good enough. Remus made the decision for him, uncorking the bottle and pouring him a bit as Sirius tried, “Have I ever had a wank? Well, _sure_. I tried it once when I was younger. Flogged the bishop a few times in Azkaban when I was bored. Dementors couldn’t take _that_ from me, because it wasn’t quite a _happy_ memory. It was more… a means to an end.”

Remus kept his glass empty. “That’s something, isn’t it?”


	2. sirius black and the first time for everything

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look. The whole point of writing this story was to write smut for my wife. Then feelings got involved. I have no excuses for myself. I am ashamed.

**sirius black and the first time for everything**

Sex had never been a priority and it wasn’t now. In fact, Sirius had never considered it at all. In more than thirty years on earth, it hadn’t interested him, and he supposed it didn’t now. It did, however, interest Remus, who, although sleeping, was hard.

Sirius was sharing a bed. It had been so long since Sirius had really _lay_ in one. It felt better than he’d remembered. Sirius wondered how anyone could be so consumed with the feeling of sex when something as incredible as _beds_ existed.

Sirius had been drunk, but it had faded far too quickly. Remus had not been so lucky and had tumbled into bed with his face falling first, the rest of him following.

“I’d always wanted _you,”_ Remus had muttered, before snoring, and Sirius had to pick up his feet to launch them up onto the mattress.

Sirius stayed awake all night, listening to Remus’s breath. He watched the sheet that covered Remus’s trousers, how it bulged with Remus’s need. He paid attention to even the smallest changes; there was a moment with a flicker of a smile on Remus’s face, with his cock responding in time with a twitch. Sirius wondered what he was dreaming about. It had been years since Sirius dreamed of anything other than a darkness so thick that it was impenetrable. He imagined that was what death felt like.

Day was breaking when Remus began to shudder. Sirius turned to his side, prepared to wake Remus from whatever nightmare plagued him, but his curiosity peaked and he watched instead. Sucking in quick breath through his nose, nearly panting, Remus’s hands clenched into fists and he twisted up the sheet that covered him. His hips bucked, wild. It took a few moments for Sirius to understand what was happening, but once he did, his lips parted with keen awareness and a single breath fell through them.

As though Remus could feel it, sense it, he shivered once, exhaled hard, hips jutting up, a few, rigid times. And just like that, Remus stilled. Sirius lowered his body only slightly, enough that he could admire the sticky wet substance that had fought through Remus’s trousers and now made the sheet damp in one spot.

Remus groaned as sleep eluded him and Sirius slammed his own head back to the pillow, eyes closing as though he was still in school, eluding a professor, pretending to be asleep when he’d just been up, likely doing something naughty with the other Marauders. This would take the cake.

“Bloody… firewhisky.” The voice was low, a murmur to himself, though Remus’s following noise -- something of a horrified yelp -- was far less considerate. Sirius took it as a cue and he stretched, allowing his eyes to slowly open as though he’d been asleep the whole time.

“You could wake the dead with that kind of sound,” Sirius warned, rubbing his eyes.

Remus’s voice was low. Warning. Close to the timbre he employed when he’d forgotten his wolfsbane. “ _Don’t_ look over here.”

Although very unlike him, Sirius allowed Remus the small mercy as he agreed with, “Very well.” He rose from the bed, limbs more sore now, regardless of how comfortable he’d been. He did glance back to see Remus caved over, head in his hands, sitting on the edge of the bed. Sirius couldn’t be certain if it was the hangover, or if it was shame.


	3. james potter and the most important question

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> LMAO In my feelings again.

**james potter and the most important question**

“No.” Sirius’s answer came immediately, without hesitation. James loved Lily. He loved his unborn child more. But he also _knew_ Sirius better than he knew anyone. He knew Sirius would be afraid that this child would replace him completely. Render his place in James’s life completely obsolete.

He also knew that the offer must have felt placating. It wasn’t, and James told him so. “There is no one else who would protect this child more than you, Padfoot.”

“ _Do not_ call me that. Not now.”

Everything had changed the moment James married Lily. He’d felt it shift, felt the Marauders slowly die. But it had been a rift, hadn’t it? Not a total severance. Severance. An appropriate word. James had chided Sirius for his continued mockery of old Snape, at Lily’s behest. The only reason she finally said _yes_ to his first proposal, James imagined.

“Sirius, then.” James could respect Sirius’s need for space. “Point is. No one would love this child more. If anything happens to us, I want him to go to you.”

“He’s got an aunt. An uncle. Let _them_ have him.” James was surprised by how Sirius’s words sounded like a plea.

“He won’t belong there,” James insisted, taking a slow step forward. Sirius’s eyes were wild and James felt as though he was approaching an untamed creature. “He would belong with you.”

“Be with me.” Sirius spat the words out before he could swallow them completely. How very unlike him. But he didn’t regret them. “Be with me and leave all of this. _Fuck_ the Order. _Fuck_ obligations. _Fuck_ Remus, and Peter, and Lily. Fuck all of it. Be with _me.”_

A hell of a time to ask, but even James had to admit that the ends had been fraying for some time.

James had loved Sirius too long and too dearly to shatter him with a half-truth, or something as devastating as hope. “No,” he said, firmly.

Sirius’s head hung, but it was clear it had been the answer that he had been expecting. He was quiet for a long time. Too long, perhaps. When he spoke again, it was with newfound strength. He looked up and caught James’s eyes with his own. “Then yes,” he said. “I’ll be Harry’s godfather.”


	4. remus lupin and the hangover to end all others

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it, y'all. You thought you were getting gold, and you get angst.

**remus lupin and the hangover to end all others**

Shame read like a novel all over Remus’s body. He showered it off. Pulled the sheets from the bed to wash them. But if Sirius knew, if he’d suspected anything, he played it off expertly.

Even after all this time, Sirius seemed to hold his hangover and his pain cautiously and carefully. Remus was not so lucky. The headache alone nearly killed him, the nausea creeping.

But did Sirius know? Did Sirius know what Remus had dreamed? How that dream had led to Remus’s indignity spelled out in come all over his sheets?

Sirius was drinking from a mug, staring at the place on the wall where his portrait had once been. There was nothing but a dark, black hole now. Charred edges. Sirius must have known Remus’s filthy secret, because he spoke the moment Remus entered the room, even despite the fact that Remus had been quiet and hadn’t announced his entrance.

“It’s good,” Sirius said, “that he doesn’t have James’s eyes. Better that way, I think.”

Remus wanted to know if that was a tear down Sirius’s face, but he left it alone. “I’m in pain,” he said, instead. “Terrible, terrible pain. Does the tea help?”

Sirius did not turn his head but, instead, said, “Nothing does.”


End file.
